Campaign Boosts Patient Referrals by 50%
Using a choo-choo train to promote its "Main Line" partnership, duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Del., and Bryn Mawr Hospital in Bryn Mawr, Pa., launched a multimedia campaign last year that is generating a 50 percent increase in physician referrals.
The number of patient referrals to the duPont Hospital is averaging 60 per month up from 30 (prior to the campaign).
Targeting families with children who live along Philadelphia's "Main Line" of suburbs, the $400,000 campaign used direct mail, newspaper, magazine and outdoor to highlight how the partnership provides "world-class" pediatric care on a local basis.
The advertising effort, launched by Dorland Sweeney Jones (DSJ), a Philadelphia-based advertising agency, ran from November 1997 to March 1998 and generated a 2 percent direct mail response rate based on 240,000 pieces.
And the number of calls to the toll-free number promoted in the ads has doubled to 298 from 153 per month.
But the challenge was developing a combined "high-quality" care message without stepping on either hospital's toes, says Terry Voelker, Bryn Mawr's PR director.
"We didn't want to make it seem like because duPont is partnering with us, now we have specialty care.
We wanted the message to communicate that both hospitals were enhancing the great care they already offer."
The two hospitals met weekly to hash out strategic issues that ranged from incorporating primary care doctors in the Main Line target area to the pediatric services required.
From a creative standpoint, the train theme is effective in branding the partnership - especially in train stations - and delivering a "story book" tone, says Mark Nolan, senior VP/creative director at DSJ.
The campaign also boosted employee morale by using the children of hospital employees in the advertising.
Next steps for the campaign include tracking results ranging from the number of calls into the hospital hotline to indentifying where most of the referrals are coming from, says Voelker. (DSJ, Mark Nolan, Andrew Dunn, 215/625-0111; Bryn Mawr Hospital, Terry Voelker, 302/651-6092)